Success Quotes by Alain de Botton

Compatibility is an achievement of love; it shouldn't be its precondition.

— Alain de Botton

If one felt successful, there'd be so little incentive to be successful.

— Alain de Botton

“Let's make sure our ideas of success are our own, that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions.”

— Alain de Botton

A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough.

— Alain de Botton

Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.

— Alain de Botton

A successful work will draw out the features capable of exciting a sense of beauty and interest in the spectator.

— Alain de Botton

“The more corrupt the community, the stronger the lure of individual achievement”

— Alain de Botton

I passionately believe that's it's not just what you say that counts, it's also how you say it - that the success…

— Alain de Botton

“We are not always humiliated by failing at things; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of…

— Alain de Botton

The most unbearable thing about many successful people is not - as we flatteringly think - how lazy they are, but how…

— Alain de Botton

The humanities have been forced to disguise, both from themselves and their students, why their subjects really matter, for the sake of…

— Alain de Botton

It's great to get an 'F', but you also want to give the sense that there's something outside achievement. I've seen a…

— Alain de Botton

I've had my successes and failures. I know many academics in my field loathe me. I've come to loathe them back, as…

— Alain de Botton

If optimism is important, it's because many outcomes are determined by how much of it we bring to the task. It is…

— Alain de Botton

Status Anxiety: A worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger…

— Alain de Botton

The pre-scientific age, whatever its deficiencies, had at least offered its members the peace of mind that follows from knowing all man-made…

— Alain de Botton

“The business card does not fully reflect who we are. We are being judged, we feel, in a humiliating way. We feel…

— Alain de Botton

We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling…

— Alain de Botton

No one is able to produce a great work of art without experience, nor achieve a worldly position immediately, nor be a…

— Alain de Botton

“The essence of the charge made against the modern high-status ideal is that it is guilty of effecting a gigantic distortion of…

— Alain de Botton

Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can move from your thinking that your…

— Alain de Botton

“For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualised; it will never…

— Alain de Botton

“Far from rejecting outright any hierarchy of success or failure, philosophy instead reconfigures the judging process, lending legitimacy to theidea that themainstream…

— Alain de Botton

What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should…

— Alain de Botton